In this insightful travelogue, geopolitical expert Robert D. Kaplan turns his perceptive eye to the Adriatic Sea, a region that has always been a crossroads in trade, culture, and ideas. Kaplan undertakes a journey through Italy and the Balkan countries lining the Adriatic to reveal much more to the region than news stories about resurgent populism or the refugee crisis let on. Traveling the coastline from Italy to Slovenia and Croatia, to Montenegro to Albania and to Greece, he engages in perceptive cultural criticism and an urgent study of Europe as a whole with a close reading of his personal library and examination of his own career, contrasting his visits to the Adriatic region through the years. With a cross-pollination of history, literature, art, architecture, and current events, Kaplan demonstrates how Europe is distilled within the geography of the Adriatic, an often-overlooked region rich with answers and insights about the fate of the continent.